[PS4 Review] Flockers

Review Overview

Good game that avoids you saying "Thanks for Mutton"

8

8

Good

Flockers is a new game brought to by Team 17, the creators of Worms. Did they fall asheep at the wheel or pull off a beeeeery good trick? (I’ll stop now. I promise).

New from the creators of Worms, Flockers is a modern day take on the classic A to B puzzle genre with a generous helping of dark humor for good measure. Held in captivity within the evil thrall of their diabolical masters the sheep are finally making a dash for freedom. But without your guidance they are destined to die in the most horrific ways as they follow each other into diabolical traps, giant meat cleavers, spikes and other deadly obstacles.

Flockers Official Trailer

Flockers is an A-Z puzzle game where you are directing sheep to the end of a maze trying to keep as many of them way from meeting the grim reaper. Think Lemmings made for the 21st Century, with blood and gore splattered around.

The premise is simple. The sheep are trying to escape a “sheep killing” factory. You must avoid the dangers bringing as many sheep to the end as possible. To do this, you can earn power-ups for the sheep. One will make them jump, one will make them fly up walls, others will turn them into steps or blockers to help you navigate the map.

You use the left stick to navigate as your pointer to choose where you want to place your power-ups. You can also have a large circle radius to hit more sheep when putting on the flying and jumping powers. You can zoom in and out of the levels to give you a look at everything, and I recommend doing that because somehow your sheep always end up in weird places. You can also pause the game and take your time to figure out what your best options are. Each level has a 3-star progression system for you to try and achieve the best score. This will drive you to replay the levels until you get the best score possible.

The real star of any game like this is not the creatures you are protecting, but what you are protecting them from. The level design has to be key for this to work properly. That being said the level design bounces between good and great. Your sheep have many obstacles to overcome and avoid that could lead to their death. Buzzsaws, Spikes, Crushers, Wheels, everything is out to get you. There are teleporters that will navigate to different points in the level. Often you will find yourself setting up a blocker so that your sheep wait for the perfect timing to avoid their untimely fates. There are some levels that are just okay, but then you run into some which are really cool, like onw where you place your sheep on a vehicle that navigates through the whole level and you have to do your best to get them all to the end in one piece.

As you complete different goals in the game, you will also unlock the ability to customize your sheep by changing their colors or having them wear hats, and you can also configure the blood that splatters everywhere, and even decide if you should have undead sheep. There are lots of cool customization options, and the game keeps track of things and tells you how close you are and what you have to do to unlock the next item. This also adds some extra replay value to Flockers, which is always nice.

But best of all… the game has a Platinum trophy! There are 21 total trophies with 7 Golds, and 7 Silver trophies. That’s an awesome mix for any game. There will need to be some effort and time put into them as you need some your unlockables to be able to earn more trophies, and some will only apply to the best that are out there. I’m looking at you trophy that asks me to complete every level with three stars! There is a lot to do, and if you spend the time you will be greatly rewarded.

Flockers is an interesting game that works but that could definitely be improved. I like the concept and the sheep themselves, but there seems to be an overall lack of power-ups. The game has been compared to Lemmings, and in that game there were plenty of different job options for the titular characters. Flockers in comparison just seems a bit sparse. There are some really cool designed levels, and the game will quickly start to get frustratingly hard, but as you get better you will make it through easier and see the master plan at work.

This review is based on a copy of Flockers provided by Team17

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